Electronic animal control systems have been employed wherein a radio receiver is mounted upon an animal in order to detect a signal from a radio transmitter and to deliver a stimulus to the animal in response to the received signal. It is desirable for such a radio receiver to be compact and to use as few parts as possible. Since such receivers usually operate on battery power, it is also desirable to reduce the amount of electrical power that is consumed within the receiver. The use of orthogonal antennae within such receivers may be desirable to provide more uniform reception relative to receivers utilizing a single antenna. The use of multiple antennae, however, contributes to an increase in the number of parts and to the electrical power consumed within the receiver.
Animals tend to respond poorly to behavioral reinforcement stimuli that are not consistently applied in well-defined circumstances. Electronic animal control systems typically employ an electrical shock as a motivational stimulus. The magnitude of the shock delivered to the animal often depends upon the positioning of the receiver upon the animal and upon other environmental factors such as the presence of moisture upon the skin of the animal. Such factors can detract from the delivery of a consistent shock to the animal. It would therefore be desirable to provide a system for delivering a consistent shock that is insensitive to such environmental conditions. It would also be desirable to provide an animal control system wherein the type of stimulus applied to the animal is readily adaptable to the temperament of the particular animal to be controlled.
In order to avoid accidental application of stimuli in response to spurious or interfering radio signals, it would also be desirable to provide a system for verifying authentic transmitter signals. For this purpose, the detected radio signal may desirably be subjected to a plurality of verification tests to determine the presence within the received signal of a characteristic property of the authentic transmitter signal.